I was in a big room full of barristers in the City of London the other night, trying to keep my head down because all barristers read The Times – and have an opinion about it – when I was collared by one on my way to the bar who said, “Giles Coren!” “Yes?” I said, suspiciously. “I read you every

Social media are contributing to depression, says a study reported in The Times on Thursday, which found that “users grow unhappy when they see friends and acquaintances enjoying themselves, if they are not”. It found that one in five social media users polled — equivalent to seven million British

I had to be in Smithfield for a morning’s work last week and as I was slated to have lunch afterwards with my late father’s oldest friend, Jon Rayman, I thought I might make life terribly convenient for myself and eat somewhere around there. And when I cast around for restaurant tips among people

Have you ever been crept up on by a really good meal when you were least expecting it, and then only realised how good it was when it was almost over? It’s the weirdest thing. And it happened to me last Saturday at a place called Andina in Shoreditch. I had been out with one of my best friends on

I hope you’re looking forward to the Channel 4 documentary this evening about the discovery (or not) of Shakespeare’s headless (or not) corpse. Truly, I cannot think of a better way to ramp up the already feverish celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the old boy’s death. Although, is it just

Ho ho ho,” I thought to myself as I packed a notebook, pen, machete and AK-47 into my little brown satchel and headed to Oliver Maki. “This is going to be like shooting very expensive, over-faffed, grizzly little bits of fish in a barrel.” I don’t set out to slaughter restaurants, ever. We all

No sooner have we got over our rage about high street coffee chains not paying enough tax (which we dealt with by shouting, “It’s outrageous! I’m boycotting them for ever! Right after I neck down this grande skinny latte!”), than we are given new cause to yell “Death to StarCosNero!” with the

I don’t know whether you prefer to eat your lunch in a prison or on top of a bunch of shipping containers piled up on the side of a road like something made out of Duplo by a 100ft toddler, so this week I’m giving you a choice. We’ll start with the Clink at HMP High Down in Sutton. You’ve probably

Students from the #RhodesMustFall campaign descended on Oxford on Wednesday to protest not just against the continued non-falling of Rhodes’s statue at Oriel College but all sorts of other examples of how “white supremacy is built into the very structure of Oxford University’s buildings”. The

Generally speaking, the job of providing 1,500 words each week about what one had for lunch cannot be characterised as a white-knuckle ride. I have all week in which to find a restaurant, usually new, that I think will feed me well and not make me sad, and then several days to mull how best to